


goddamn right you should be scared

by 75hearts



Series: we but teach bloody instructions [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bad Parenting, Descriptions of war, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Siblings, descriptions of torture, neither are actually happening but as part of a very vivid War Is Hell lecture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 17:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15667872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/75hearts/pseuds/75hearts
Summary: “You scared them,” Maglor had said.“Good.” Maedhros’ voice was expressionless.





	goddamn right you should be scared

“You scared them,” Maglor had said.

“Good.” Maedhros’ voice was expressionless.

“You can’t mean that. They are children.”

“You doubt me?” His smile was wide and had too many teeth; his eyes were not smiling at all.

Maglor simply raised one eyebrow. “I am not a child, and not half so easy to scare. You have done terrible things, alright, so have I. But you care for them--you cared for Eluréd and Elurín, and you had not even _met_ them--stop the play-acting.”

“You wish me to stop play-acting! Alright. I think that it is entirely reasonable that they are scared, given that we _kidnapped them as hostages._ I think your attempts to force us into a mockery of a happy, normal family are utterly absurd, given that we _killed their true family_. I think that it is you who has been trying to force us into play-acting, and that I at least have had the courtesy to realize that if I am in a play, I am the villain of it, and not the hero swooping in to save them. I think that you are being unfathomably selfish, because you want someone to trust you and love you and tell you that you are not as horrifically evil as you in fact are, and so you have stolen--excuse me, _rescued_ \--two children in the hopes that this will be your redemption. They are children whose family you have killed, and you are using them as props so you can pretend to be the father you never were. Tell me now, and tell me truly, which of us is the one who is play-acting? Which of us is harming the children?”

Maglor could do nothing then but gape at his brother. Eventually: “That was cruel.”

“Yes, well. We are both kinslayers, but at least you are _kind_ about it, is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night? Well, here is my response to that: we are both kinslayers, but at least I am honest about it.”

 

-

 

Maedhros spoke to them at breakfast without preamble. They startled; usually he was silent. “Today you will begin your lessons on fighting. I have armor, swords--both practice and not--, and bows ready for you.”

The twins’ eyes went wide. They nodded.

Maedhros was a good teacher, and a gentle one. That first day, they worked on naught but footwork, holding blocks of wood to get a feel for the balance. But though he talked to them more he was no less distant, and still as terrifying; perhaps more, for a madman with a sword is always more frightening than one without. He never hurt them, and in time he made sure that even sparring with sharpened swords neither were ever injured; but nor did he comfort them, and often he would get a gleam in his eyes and laugh as one fey.

“Why are you laughing?” Elros ventured after a sparring match. He had been feeling braver than usual, that day.

“You do not see it? But then, you would not. It is just--so terribly funny--here I am, your captor, and I am teaching you how to fight me. Ah, if you had had these lessons back in Sirion! You would have died.” And he laughed, again.

“It is bold, to think yourself our captor still. We could sneak away, call for aid. If naught else we could run for the woods, or for Angband, and die outside your power.”

“And it is bold of you to think that you could do this, if we truly wished to stop you.” Maedhros looked over their heads, then, as though his eyes were fixed on something very far away; and again he laughed, but this time it was a much darker sound. “They call us monsters, and they are not wrong. But believe me true when I swear this: we could be so much worse.” He looked at them again, and grinned, his smile twisting and distorting the scars that covered his face. “Elros, you did fine, though you could have recognized his movements and parried faster; Elrond, you are still telegraphing far too much. A skilled opponent will see what you are doing and stop you before you have even moved your sword, and will be not fooled by your feints.” He tapped the ground twice, his signal, and they got into position automatically. “ _Again._ ”

 

-

 

“Why do you think he’s teaching us?” Elrond whispered. They were supposed to be sleeping.

Elros didn’t ask who he meant. “We could ask.”

“‘I’m going to ask him tomorrow’, you mean.”

“Well, yeah. I don’t know why you don’t.”

“I don't have to. You ask all my questions for me. I just have to watch.”

 

The next morn, Elros had scarcely opened his mouth when Maedhros looked directly at Elrond. His voice was terrifyingly sincere; his face was utterly blank. “I teach you because you might need it. You will rarely need proper pronunciation of Old Quenya, or beautiful singing, or proper handwriting, or stories of Valinor in the light of the Two Trees. But you will oft need swordfighting, I fear, and you are in my charge; thus I teach you.” The next moment, Maedhros’ sword was at Elrond’s throat, and the breath fluttered in his chest. Still Maedhros’ face did not move. “Not all enemies will tap twice on the ground before attacking. You are not ready for war; no children are. But you are readier now than you were.” His sword was in its sheath again before Elrond or Elros could draw theirs, and he laughed. “Hate me, love me, fear me; it makes no difference in the end. These lessons will save your life, or else they will kill you, and we will not know which it is until it is too late to do anything about it.”

 

That night, instead of whispering across beds, Elrond passed notes to his twin; before he slept, he fed them to the fireplace.

 

-

 

They were thirteen when the war started.

They passed notes, night after night, until finally at dinner, Elrond spoke. His voice was quiet but resolute. “We are going to join the war.”

Maedhros nodded. “Alright.” His voice was steady, though his face was pained.

Maglor looked aghast, dropping the piece of bread he was holding. “Even how the Men reckon it, they are children.”

“I am not their captor. Are you?”

“No, but I am--” Maglor stilled.

“You are what? Their family? We killed their family. If they want out, and it comes down to it, they have swords. I can defeat them easily in a fight. _I do not think that is what you want from me_.”

“No,” Maglor said, “It is not.” He sighed. “But they do not know what they are doing.”

Elros spoke them, eyes filled with surprising fire. “We are not sheltered children. We have seen death. You showed it to us. We were six. Do not say we do not understand.”

Maedhros looked at him then, very fiercely, until Elros shivered and shrank under his gaze. He suddenly felt very young; his skin was unmarked, and he was whole and hale. “Nobody understands what they are doing when they walk into war, whether they do it at thirteen or three hundred.”

“Then _tell us_ ,” Elros said.

“I do not know that it is possible to tell.” Maedhros looked once again as though he was staring at something very far away, but this time he was not smiling. “But I will try.

“The first thing I will tell you is this—Killing someone is easier than you expect. You think it will feel like something, that it will be hard or meaningful or _something_ , but it is just the same thing you have done in practice a million times, except you will have a sharper tip and you will not stop at the last moment. Or perhaps it is the same thing you have done in the kitchen, cutting through meat, gutting and butchering animals. Either way: They scream and they bleed and they die, much more easily than it seems they should, and they leave you with the realization that you did that, that you have killed someone for the first time, and you will not even have time to realize because if you put your attention to that for a split second, you will die.”

“We will not be killing elves.”

“No, I suppose not. But I am not done. The orcs—the orcs will be hideous beyond description. My terrible face will, when compared to an orc, be comparable in beauty to your famous great-grandmother. But they will be recognizable; you will know, as you are killing, that you are killing people that used to be elves. Enslaved elves, tortured elves, in terrible pain, twisted to hatred and evil: but you will know that the only thing separating you from them is _luck_ . Luck that you were born in Sirion and not in Angband.” He took a breath, studied their faces for a moment. “Your comrades beside you will die. Your friends may die; your family may die. You may die. If you are lucky, you will walk away in a few decades, scarcely remembering what it is to not be at war, with a few scars and nightmares and scary stories and nothing worse. If you are a little less lucky, you will die. If you are unlucky—there are many fates far worse than the Halls of Mandos. You should know that, by now, because you have known me, but I am telling you because you have not heard me say it. And if you are _particularly_ unlucky—I am one of very, very few elves still alive and free who can describe Angband. The best you can hope for there is to be a slave. But you are the descendants of the only person who has ever bested Morgoth; you will not be a slave, I can promise you that.

“Perhaps you will gain the attention of the Balrogs, or even of the Lieutenant, who is here called Gorthaur the Terrible. Gothmog is the King of Balrogs; he wields a whip that scorches and breaks the flesh both at once. Your skin will bubble. You will scream; he will not care. You will try to drink pus from your blistered skin because you are thirsty and desperate, and you will pass out, and he will not care. Gorthaur can reach into your mind. You will escape, over and over again, and over and over again you will wake up to his laughing face. He will hunt down people you once knew and force you to choose which he will torture. He will wear the face of the people you trust most until you believe him and tell him your worst secrets, and then he will use them against you. He will not _let_ you pass out when he takes a whip or knife to you, because he does not approve of escape. When he is bored of you, he will chain you up and let your muscles and joints give out one by one, so that even when he is not there you will be in pain by his hand; and he will put you someplace visible, so that any friends or family or even comrades in the war effort will see you hurting, and you will know that your existence is only allowed for its damage to morale.

“That is not all, not even close; and Morgoth himself is much, much worse. I will spare you the details. I do not think you are even able to imagine it. Perhaps now you know enough to know that _you do not want to_. Do not ask questions if you do not want the answers.

“But let us say that you are lucky. Let us say that you are not captured. Let us say that you fight, and fight well. You will rise to officer, commander, general, lieutenant. You will never have enough food, enough weapons. At times the air and water will be made of poison. You will command men, and in doing so you will take responsibility for their lives. You may teach some of them as I have taught you. You will lead them into battle with them believing in you, trusting you utterly. And you will watch them die. Perhaps you will envy them, but you will know that you cannot die, because you are more _valuable_ than them. You will get used to thinking of it in those terms, weighing lives by _value to the war effort_ , because you will have no other choice. You might come out of it fine; many do. You might come out of it a monster worse than I. None have done that yet, but perhaps only because I am setting a high bar.” He smiled a bit at that, his mouth misshapen and his eyes flashing. “Do you still wish to go to war?”

“Yes,” said Elrond, after a pause, “if I can help.” From the look on his face he was as startled as anyone.

“Then I will not stop you. I have marched to worse things with less understanding. For you still do not understand truly; but you understand more than you did.”

“Wait,” Elrond said. “I want to learn, first. I want to get better at swordfighting. And I want to learn to heal.”

Maedhros did laugh, then, a real laugh, short and ugly. “Well, Maglor, it appears you will be teaching them something valuable after all.”

 

-

 

They were diligent students. Elros was, as ever, the better swordsman; but Elrond took to healing songs even faster than he had took to histories and lore. It was scarcely weeks before he was better at them than Maglor. Then again, that was not saying much; Maglor’s voice was beautiful, but his songs for healing could scarce close paper cuts.

“I was better at them, once,” Maglor told him late one night, fingers stilling on his harp, his voice wistful.

“Yes, I am sure you were.” Elrond said. Elrond did not say _It is said that the guilty are not good with Songs of Power, no matter their musical talent_ , or _Perhaps if you wanted to be a healer you should not have taken up sword to driven my mother off a cliff_ ; but he thought it. Instead, he sung, and he pushed his heart to heal, to fix, and he wondered--if he had known this at Sirion, if it would have helped. Perhaps there was some reason it would not have. Or had Lúthien not taught Dior her own songs? Surely she would have, and they did not help win against the Second Kinslaying.

Elrond pushed that out of his mind, and he began to sing. _Heal_ , he commanded as he sang, and imagined his mother, falling from the cliff, hitting the rocks. _Heal_ , and he imagined her becoming a bird, flying away, escaping as he could not, her body unharmed, and he _willed_ that everyone who heard him become as unharmed as she.

“Very good,” Maglor said, after a pause. “You have a natural talent for healing.”

Elrond smiled wanly. “Thank you.” _I will need it_ , he did not say, but they both knew it anyway.

 

-

 

Maedhros was right. They did not truly understand war until they experienced it.

But they did not die, nor were they captured. They slew many orcs, but none of their kin. They started fighting as children; when the fighting ended, they were adults by Mannish standards, if not by Elven ones.

 

-

 

After the war was won—after Maedhros died and Maglor disappeared—they did not pass notes anymore. “What are you going to choose?” Elros whispered.

Uneasiness grew in Elrond’s heart as he answered. “I am going to be an elf, just as our parents did. Why?”

“I’m not.”

“What?”

“I’m choosing Eru’s Gift. Didn’t you hear me?”

“I did, but—”

“There are worse things than death.” He said it with a sense of finality.

“Yes,” said Elrond. “I suppose there are.”


End file.
